


you can get it wrong (and still think you’re right)

by stonedlennon



Category: The Beatles
Genre: 1960s, 1967, Anal Sex, M/M, Oral Sex, Recreational Drug Use, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2017-01-06
Packaged: 2018-09-15 07:03:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9224210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stonedlennon/pseuds/stonedlennon
Summary: Paul visits John at Weybridge. January, 1967.The laziest man in England, that article had said, and Paul thought suddenly of John, lounging: John, turning the pages of a book with one languid hand, his hair mussed and fetching, making pithy comments to empty rooms. Or maybe he didn’t speak at all when he was alone; Paul realized that he didn’t know anymore.





	

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from "we can work it out". everything should be timeline accurate, set during the recording of sgt pepper & prior to brian's death. au obviously because none of this happened (probably)

John opened the enormous door to Kenwood still dressed in his pyjamas.

“It’s three in the afternoon,” Paul said, frowning at his watch.

Cigarette in hand, John peered at him through gold-rimmed glasses. “Am I late or summat?”

“Whatever for?” Laughing shortly, Paul shouldered past him and into the carpeted foyer. The house was as still as a tomb. He glanced through to the sunken living room, then up the twin staircases that curled around the foyer to the top floor. Shrugging off his coat, Paul turned to look at John from over his shoulder. “Is Cyn not here?”

John snorted and, closing the door firmly, took a long drag from his smoke. “When is she ever, more like,” he replied nastily. Twitching his nose to adjust his glasses, John put his free hand in the pocket of a luxurious dressing gown that, Paul noticed, had coffee stains on the cuffs.

“Julian too? And we’re not recording today.” Figuring that John wouldn’t be bothered to hang up his coat, Paul did it himself. “We recorded yesterday.”

“I’m stoned,” John reminded him dully. “Not bloody incompetent. The boy is with his mother. Better for him, or so I have been told.” The last words were delivered with an enunciation that George Martin would be proud of. Rolling his wrist in a vague gesture, John plucked the cigarette from his mouth and frowned at Paul in the grey late-winter light. Paul smiled shyly, eyes alighting on John’s drawn face for a moment before they skittered away, something twisting low in his stomach.

“Right, then. Breakfast?” Paul raised his eyebrows at John, who scowled at his cheeriness.

Grumbling about not knowing his arse from his elbow, _that newfangled kitchen’s a right ruddy spaceship, I’m telling ye,_ John scratched at his bare chest and shuffled past Paul, a waft of smoke and weed trailing in his wake. Even this – John, insouciant and lazy – drove him mad.

Helplessly he followed John through the house, debating when the best time would be to launch into his spiel. These days the drugs were a near-constant visitor to their partnership, an apparition that lingered at John’s elbow and made him mumble things like, _I’ll just pop out for a moment,_ before he returned, suffused and glassy-eyed, at times insular to the point of being antisocial, at others extroverted and crude, his lip curling at imagined slights or misinterpreted asides. George had already told Paul that he’d tried to have a chat.

“But ‘what’d be the point,’” George recounted, shrugging. “’Life’s dull enough as it is’, he said.”

 _Dull,_ Paul wondered as they went through yet another set of sprawling rooms. _Lonely, more like._

Ducking his head, Paul watched the soles of John’s feet as he walked. White shag carpet gave way to grey tile, the hem of his dressing gown swishing to a stop. Paul looked up and met John’s critical gaze.

“I’ve only got toast,” he said, slightly indistinct behind his cigarette. “Damn waffle maker’s broken.”

It was the sight of him, bare-footed and hazy, mellow but watchful, that made Paul smile properly. “I don’t mind,” he replied. “I came to see you.”

Smoke curled from John’s mouth. He was quiet for a long, heavy moment, his expression inscrutable. “Bollocks,” he pronounced. Sucking on his cigarette, John narrowed his eyes at him, apparently coming to a decision. He sounded reluctant when he said, “I’ll make ye toast anyway. Siddown, or what have ye,” but his gaze lingered on Paul for a further moment. Moving with the swiftness of the stoned, John turned to pad over to the kitchen counter.

John barely knew how to butter a piece of bread, Paul knew, but he sat down at the huge table anyway. The surface was littered with paraphernalia, some of it official, like mail from the studio, but most of it the usual, dogeared fan letters that the rest of them had sent directly to Brian to sort out. Paul hadn’t been here enough to relax into his chair, so he sat somewhat awkwardly, first crossing his legs, then straightening them out. He was in the middle of sitting on his hands when John plonked a kettle in front of him, reaching over the back of Paul’s chair, one hand on his shoulder, to stab his cigarette into a dirty plate.

Their proximity was fleeting. Paul missed the warmth of John’s hand the moment he pushed away.

“Breakfast in the afternoon, McCartney,” came John’s voice behind him. “Anyone’d think I’d brought you about my ways.”

“Oh, that happened a long time ago,” Paul replied loftily. “I pretend I don’t know any different, and people treat me just the same.”

Returning with a couple of clean-looking cups and a stack of toast he held in one hand, John grunted. “They would, gullible bastards.”

“It’s the face,” Paul agreed, as John dropped the toast onto the same plate he’d put the cig out on. Reaching for the butter dish, he raised a knife with a questioning look. John made a noise of assent and picked up a stack of mail, blinking slowly as he sorted through them. Slathering on butter and jam, Paul watched him from beneath his eyelashes. The glimpse of smooth skin between the folds of John’s dressing gown occupied him for a long while, before John held up a single envelope and scowled.

Flipping it over to look at the reverse side, the corner of John’s mouth pulled down in puzzlement.

Paul gestured to the letter in John’s hand with his piece of toast. “Fan-mail, coming here?”

“More’s the pity I don’t have me dad answering it for me,” John quipped, throwing himself into the chair opposite. He picked up Paul’s butter knife and began to saw through the envelope. Paul ate his toast and most of John’s, then swiped a blob of marmalade from his plate and sucked it off his finger. John’s glasses glinted in the dull light coming in from the kitchen windows as he read the letter. After a while he snorted.

Paul said, “Saucy, is it?”

“Not really.” John tossed the single paper at him. Paul picked it up before it could get covered in butter, shooting him a frown as he shook it out. In the middle of the letter, done in blue biro, a single word was written: _yes._

“’Yes’?” Paul echoed.

“Got any fags?” John was patting at the front of his dressing gown, unwashed hair curling across his forehead.

“Yes,” he repeated, unfazed by the roundabout conversation. Paul extricated a pack and handed it over, reminded vividly of bumming cigs off each other back in Hamburg, when they were too stint to afford one between each other, and occasionally were reduced to begging them off pretty barmaids or drunk sailors.

Lighting two cigarettes with a lighter found in his dressing gown, John puffed on them before removing one from his mouth and wordlessly giving it to Paul.

“Shut yer gob, McCharmley,” John ordered, his voice only slightly muffled by the cig. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms across his chest, the very picture of stoned belligerence that, unexpectedly, made Paul think of John, aged nineteen, sullen and kicking his heels outside the Cavern, muttering darkly about something or another. ‘Course, that was well before LSD or weed, but John had always suited sloth.

Paul knew better than to react in irritation, and so mirrored John by leaning back in his own chair and taking a long drag from his smoke. “Am I supposed to know what you’re on about?” He was going for mild disinterest, and John – damn him – knew it, if the corresponding thin-lipped, humourless smile was anything to go by.

“Your disapproval is suffocating,” John told him, stabbing out his cig in the butter dish. Paul frowned.

“Because of the letter?” he clarified. When John didn’t reply, Paul continued in mounting confusion, “Am I supposed to care what it says?”

“You should.” John sounded simultaneously accusatory and guarded. Before Paul could question him further, he sniffed and rubbed one eye with a finger. “If it wasn’t for one of yer blasted art dos I’d be home free.”

By _home free_ Paul was assuming John didn’t mean _trapped in glass houses._ “So,” he started, “you’re thinking I’d care about some bird’s fan-mail to you. Why, has she sent you a body part or something?”

“Would if she could,” John muttered.

“You what?” Paul stared at him. They were all fairly inoculated against strange deeds ever since Manila and Tokyo, but very occasionally a story would worm past their patchwork existences. Between the flashy London dinners and the theatre openings, Jane swaying through a crowd and looking over her shoulder at him, kittenish and grinning; despite hangers-on circling like sharks, Brian’s weary but conciliatory _A good tune is always the next best thing,_ the bizarre managed to intercept, like echoes from a world when they’d scuttled from cars to hotel rooms and huddled in bathrooms for peace.

Regardless of his cryptic behaviour, John did not seem alarmed. In fact, he appeared remarkably contemplative, gazing at the cigarette in the butter, his honeyed eyes faraway, arms loosely crossed on his chest. Paul had the sudden vision of John as an old man, staring unseeingly at the television of an evening. The image would be anachronistic if he’d not had suspicions of John’s life these past couple of months. _Like a ghost,_ Cynthia had told Jane, sounding both disapproving and apprehensive.

Paul nudged John’s shin with his shoe and gave him his cig. John accepted with that same distant expression, then looked up and caught Paul’s eye.

So many years of being in this same situation – John turning at the last moment to find Paul already staring, that slow smirk across a packed hotel room, press conference, arena stage – prevented Paul’s natural response, which was to flush, and instead he looked back calmly. They considered each other for a long moment. He’d first thought that John looked drawn, but now Paul realized he was just coming down, his lips red and bitten in nerves or absent-mindedness. _The laziest man in England,_ that article had said, and Paul thought suddenly of John, lounging: John, turning the pages of a book with one languid hand, his hair mussed and fetching, making pithy comments to empty rooms. Or maybe he didn’t speak at all when he was alone; Paul realized that he didn’t know anymore.

“Fancy a laugh?” John asked suddenly, affecting Eppy’s curated tone in cruel imitation. Paul raised his eyebrows with a short smile, and John coughed away what could have been a laugh.

They got up and Paul followed John through more of the warren. Endless, enormous rooms, some pockmarked with John’s hermit existence: forgotten ashtrays, books with broken spines; and, in one room, a few records scattered by a modest player that looked very like the one back in Mendips.

“Did you nick Mimi’s turntable?” Paul asked John’s back.

“Well, that’d make me a nostalgic old bastard,” John commented in distaste. “ _You’re_ the one who wants to write all those poxy love songs.”

“We should’ve written one about Mimi,” Paul mused. He was taken aback when John did laugh hoarsely.

“Yeah, that’d win you her love,” he replied sarcastically. “McCartney, on the lawn, with the guitar.”

Paul smirked. “All the better to bash Lennon’s head in.”

They went through a doorway at the end of a long corridor, emerging into a small, bright sunroom. He then knew instantly where John spent most of his time. “I like this part,” he commented lightly.

“S’mine,” John said unnecessarily, moving further into the room and over to a shelf above a cramped daybed. The arms of his dressing gown pooled at his elbows when he lifted his hands, his wrist bones sharp, fingers long. Paul looked away quickly to the garden beyond.

“You’ve not let me in this far before,” Paul pointed out.

“With good reason,” John said churlishly, turning around. “I forgot – it’s in the shed. Hang on, would ye.”

Paul watched through the window as John, as careful as a long-legged water bird, picked his way across the lawn towards a surreptitious outbuilding. The horse shoe that hung on the door glinted as it opened and John disappeared inside.

He rubbed his hands on his thighs and looked around, distantly surprised to realize he felt all clammy. Telling himself to pull it together, Paul focused on the trinkets he could pick out, discarded remnants of Lennon’s Life at Home. Unlike the rest of the house, which was elaborate and stiff, something neither Cyn and John really liked, Paul knew, this room was as warm and cluttered as a cave. Various scraps of John’s solitary existence stood out to him as further proof that this visit was entirely warranted. John was always complaining about Paul calling ahead, “I’ve got a bloody baby here, you know,” as if Cynthia or her mother weren’t with Julian all hours of the night and day, flitting in and out of the house and skirting studiously around the errant husband. Paul only suspected that the cracks ran deeper than anyone let on.

Paul had made it a rule never to bring up family with John – that was one guaranteed way to stoke his ire and generally encourage an argument – so he’d mentioned it only in passing, thinking he could turn it into a joke, hands up, McCartney!, if John snapped.

“Waffles,” John had explained darkly, gripping his guitar and staring sullenly at Paul across the studio. “If I eat one more fucking waffle I’ll _turn_ into one.”

“’I am the waffle’,” Ringo had said from his kit. They’d laughed it off well enough.

The shed door opened as John emerged into the garden. Paul caught himself watching John with a soft expression, thought _daft git_ to himself _,_ and managed to rearrange his stupid face when the glass doors slid open. John’s cheeks were pinched with cold. Shuddering dramatically, he clutched a metal tin beneath one arm and groused, “Could do with a fucking holiday.”

Paul sank down on the carpet in front of the daybed as John put the box on the coffee table.

“Barcelona might be nice,” Paul said without thinking. John’s responding look was mingled disdain and derision.

“Reliable old Paulie,” John sneered as Paul’s jaw tightened. “At least one thing’s fer sure: you’ll never let that one go.”

“Bugger off, John,” he snapped. Drawing his legs up to his chest and looping his arms around his knees, Paul diverted John’s acidic look by gesturing at the metal tin. “Pandora’s box?”

“Only for good little boys.” Then, surprisingly, John came around to sit cross-legged next to Paul on the carpet.

“Always am,” Paul tried. John clucked his tongue in imitation of Mimi: “Not from what I’ve ‘eard.”

“No,” he said, the laughter fading in his throat as he thought of Jane running a finger along his jawline and saying, _I don’t mind, but don’t fuck up, Paul._ She intermingled with an image of Brian standing in a hotel room in front of them, his enunciation polite despite the disapproval in his eyes. Paul grinned to himself. “D’you remember when Eppy tried to get us to see that urologist?”

John looked at him with raised eyebrows. “Sex makes you think of urologists? Paul, you ought to have that seen to.”

“So said Brian about your crabs.”

“They were quite well behaved,” John said, cigarette still stuck in the corner of his mouth, as he opened the tin and started fiddling with pouches of weed. “Barely noticed ‘em at all.”

John’s leg was only just touching his. Paul shifted his arms and glanced down between them, looking at the thin material of John’s pyjama bottoms. When he flicked his eyes back up, John was deftly rolling them a joint.

“So,” John started, smoke curling around the bridge of his nose, “t’what do I owe this pleasure, young Paul?”

He paused. “Thought you could use the company, to be honest.”

“Why?” John returned to belligerence in a flash. He stopped rolling the joint to pluck the cigarette from his mouth to crush it in a nearby glass ashtray. “Did yer mother-hen sense start tingling?”

“Is it so hard to believe I just wanted to see you?” Paul stared irritably at the side of John’s head.

“I’m no fancy London ponce, if that’s what you mean.” John’s tongue was very pink as he lifted the joint to his mouth and licked a long stripe, catching a green bud on his lower lip. Paul kept his hands still to avoid reaching out.

“You’re a bloody recluse, John.” Well, there went his plan to wait until _after_ drugs had been shared.

John was obviously thinking the same thing. “Fer Christ’s sake. Could y’wait until I’ve had a smoke?”

Paul fell silent, stewing. He watched as John fumbled for his lighter and sparked the joint. The end of it blossomed orange when John took a lungful, thick, viscous smoke rolling in plumes from his parted lips. John had another hit then shifted back to lean against the side of the daybed, their shoulders pressed against one another.

When he held the joint out to Paul, he mumbled, “No one wants to see me, or have ye not noticed.”

Paul took the joint slowly, glancing from beneath his lashes at John’s profile. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“You don’t count,” John snapped. He pinched the bridge of his nose, hiking up his glasses so they squashed into his hair. “Christ, sorry. It’s these fucking uppers. I keep forgetting which ones are which so I just mix them all up.”

Paul decided to savour the taste of weed instead of thinking about how sharp those words were, how swiftly they came. Soon John adjusted his glasses and took the joint back.

In his most neutral voice, Paul said, “Maybe you should go on a holiday.”

“Japan,” John said, then laughed as Paul said, “What? Are you mad?”

“Yes,” he replied, still laughing, sounding as if he were quoting something. John exhaled a stream of smoke and handed the joint over.

The weed was just starting to cling to his limbs, making Paul feel warm and slightly disconnected. He blinked slowly and concentrated on taking a hit. “You could come to Scotland,” he suggested.

John picked up the studied lightness in Paul’s tone and snorted cruelly. “To sheep and mud?” he mocked. “No offence, but it’s no glitzy bourgeois showroom you’ve got up there. Sure my dentist didn’t have hold of ye when you signed the cheque?”

Paul held his gaze. “I’m not joking, John.”

They shared the joint for a few uncertain minutes.

“I’m not sure what I’d do with all those sheep,” John said thoughtfully. They glanced at each other and snorted.

“Clearly shagging’s off the table.” Paul flicked the joint smouldering low between his fingers, ash falling onto the horrid beige carpet.

“Well you’d know, being a farmer and all,” John joked. “Besides, are ye suggesting I’m a man of principles?”

“Outrageous,” Paul agreed as John said, “Ridiculous.”

“’Lennon, no principles and bigger than God’.” Paul took a musing drag of weed and handed it back. He tipped his head back and exhaled the smoke, a sweet buzz blossoming in his chest.

“’Lennon: likely Satan’.” John’s voice was warm and slow, humming with hidden laughter, the way that it used to be when they’d first started smoking together. That hotel room with Dylan seemed a thousand years ago, as if he’d conjured it up from a dream.

“The Americans would believe it, y’know,” Paul said lazily.

“And they’d still buy the bleedin’ record.”

A distant clatter made Paul turn in surprise. He looked back at John, who was sighing loudly. “Housekeeper,” he explained, frustrated. John bent forward to peer around him at the door, squinting even behind his glasses, as if he expected someone to come bumbling into his den.

Paul pressed their knees together to draw John’s attention. “Thought you didn’t trust anyone, anymore.”

“Only if they can’t iron,” John grumbled, settling back. He finished the joint with a sharp suck, smoke streaming from his nostrils, lips pressed firmly together. Paul watched him in his peripheral vision, then closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the cushions.

Silence stretched between them, at once companionable and charged. John was very warm against his side. Paul’s eyes fluttered open to find John staring at him very intently. He smiled, half cautious, and murmured, “Hello.”

The corner of John’s mouth quirked into a smile. “Hi.” His voice was slow, teased, measured. When he moved in to press a kiss against Paul’s waiting mouth, Paul had to close his eyes again against the swell of desire that belonged only to John. They kissed with familiarity for a long, exquisite moment until John pulled away.

“I can’t iron,” Paul said, suddenly afraid that coming here was all another terrible mistake.

“Nor I,” John admitted.

The back of Paul’s neck prickled the longer they watched each other. He was reminded of that night they’d gone back to Cavendish together, John apologetic but clearly excited, shooting Paul furtive grins as they wound through to the living room in half a dream. The dramatic solemnity with which he put the tab on Paul’s tongue, as if this were his final gift, the last door separating them, the gateway to rolling fields of unfettered creativity. Then afterwards, as they lay tangled in Paul’s bed, the one he shared with Jane, watching as the colours poured out of their bodies to dissolve the ceiling, John kept mumbling, _Oh, John, you stupid fool._

Paul swallowed past his dry throat. The weed made everything feel honeyed and certain, benevolence unwinding within him as he thought, _Why not?_

“It’s not all sheep and mud,” he murmured. John frowned at him, though not unkindly. “At High Park.”

“Paul.” John tilted his head to the side, his voice thick with fond condescension. “Ye don’t want me there.”

“No,” Paul said, getting to his feet. “ _You_ don’t want to be there.”

“Sit down.” John peered up at him in irritation.

Feeling hot and annoyed, he snapped, “Why can’t things be easy, just for once? Why do you have to make such a production out of everything?”

“Things _aren’t_ easy, you fuckin’ moron,” John retorted. He struggled to his feet to sway at Paul, eyes flashing behind his glasses. “You’re the one who wants to pretend like it’ll all fuckin’ work out nicely.”

“Can’t it?” Paul rubbed his eyes roughly.

“No,” John replied sarcastically, as if he were speaking to an especially dim child, “it fuckin’ can’t.”

His hands dropped to his sides. Paul stared intently at John. “You’re coming away with me. Only me. And I won’t take no for an answer.”

Something flickered across John’s face before his scowl resumed. “I don’t like sheep.”

“You’ll have to learn, won’t you.”

John’s expression darkened to the point that Paul raised an eyebrow. For a trembling instant, he was certain John would hit him or drag him out onto the street. Then John looked sharply away, and Paul bit his bottom lip. Muttering something unkind, John stomped around the coffee table to the door, halfway down the hallway before he yelled, “Well, come the fuck on, Paul.”

Paul followed irritably, his footsteps near soundless on the carpet. John marched ahead, his gown swishing like a cloak, not glancing around to check if Paul were coming. They slipped up a side corridor, just before the kitchen, which led to a twisting staircase. Hesitating at the foot of it, Paul said to John’s retreating back, “Is this the rabbit hole, then?”

Disappearing at the top of the stairs, John’s voice floated down: “Then you’d be going down, daft get.”

He ascended. The corridor he emerged into led left into an enormous bedroom, cavernous in its impersonal magnificence, mussed only by signs of John’s near-constant inhabitation. Paul took in the odd piles of books, the television in the corner, the ashtrays. He avoided looking at the bed, which loomed like a siren in his peripheral vision and made his palms clammy. Paul put his hands in his pockets and leaned against the doorway to watch John, who had stopped in the middle of the room with his back to the door.

“Wonderland,” John announced gravely. He turned around to look at Paul, who wet his lips under the weight of John’s gaze.

“John,” Paul started.

Shaking his head, John closed the distance between them. He stopped just before their chests touched, his expression carefully blank. Paul swallowed and John tracked the movement, something akin to that helpless hunger stirring beneath the surface.

“John,” he tried, voice strained.

“Look, I asked you up for a shag,” John blurted. “D’you want to or not?”

Paul swallowed again. “Ten minutes of quarrelling and you want to shag?”

“You never complained before.” He sounded only slightly defensive, as if giving a name to the bizarre, breathless, calamitous tangle that had blossomed between them since they were teenagers would make Paul turn away in disgust. Of this, them, _him_. John’s eyes hardened. “Don’t look at me like that.”

Paul blinked in faux innocence. “Like I want to snog you, ye mean?”

Something softened John’s thinned mouth. “Well,” he said gruffly, “in that case.”

They were pulled to each other, Paul’s hands coming to fist the shirt at John’s waist, John gripping the sides of Paul’s neck. The kiss was messy, purposeful, their lips immediately sounding slick and obscene in the weighted silence of the bedroom. Paul tried to shift closer before John pushed him into the doorframe with his hips, leaning into each other, John’s body long and hard against his. He groaned shortly against John’s mouth and slid a hand through the gap of his dressing gown just to _touch._ John’s grip tightened and he drew back enough to bite on Paul’s lower lip. His glasses were squashed between them, and when Paul broke away to pant, his eyes fluttering open, he noticed they were fogged up on one side.

“Careful.” Paul flushed at how high and breathless he sounded. He reached up to gently remove the glasses, John blinking quickly at him, his eyes myopic and vulnerable in a way that made Paul’s chest twinge.

Grinning, John murmured, “Yeah, mind me gogs,” and curled one hand around to the nape of Paul’s neck. He moved closer to swallow Paul’s groan, his other hand coming to rest in the hollow of Paul’s throat.

Pulse stuttering, Paul breathed heavily through his nose, feeling helpless, shameful _._ He was drowning in the peppery scent of weed and John’s sweat, that familiar taste of black tea and cigarette smoke in his mouth. This effigy was achingly close to their adventuresome youth: musical afternoons deteriorating into eager exploration; nightmarish evenings on the Reeperbahn, pushing each other into doorways and snarling into microphones, pints, mouths; grappling hands and choked breaths.

John always kissed like he expected to be punched.

Absently dropping the glasses onto the carpet, Paul undid John’s gown. Their mouths parted with a slick sound as Paul started to trail open-mouthed kisses down John’s bare neck, feeling the reverberations of John’s spurring moans against his wet lips. Glancing up through thick lashes, Paul sank onto his knees. John was looking down at him, hair tangling into unfocused eyes, breathing through his mouth.

“Paul,” he said in a strangled sort of tone.

The doorframe dug into Paul’s back. He gripped the back of John’s thighs and pulled him closer, effectively trapping himself between John’s legs. Paul glanced up again and bit his bottom lip.

John sounded choked. “ _Paul.”_

“Problem?” Paul asked lightly, feeling up the length of John’s wiry legs through his pyjama bottoms. John’s eyes were blown wide, black and intense, as he visibly swallowed. Licking his lips, Paul slowly traced the elastic top to come to a teasing stop at John’s erection, which jutted out beneath the thin fabric. He ran a hand along its hardness, giving it an experimental, assessing squeeze.

“Ease up there, farmer McCartney,” John joked breathlessly.

“Just checking,” Paul replied, shooting him a cheeky grin, as if he weren’t in a similar position himself. Shifting his weight and widening his knees on the carpet, Paul relished the urgent feeling between his own legs and instead reached up to tug down John’s bottoms.

They exhaled as John’s cock came free. Paul’s heart kicked in his throat. He promptly ran his tongue from John’s base to the tip, his tongue laving at the head until John’s legs quivered beneath his steady hands. Gripping John’s thigh with his left hand, Paul moved to roll John’s balls in the other, an index finger slipping behind to press against the taut skin there. John cursed roughly and caught himself on the doorframe. Sliding his tongue over John’s cock slit a few more times, Paul breathed deeply through his nose and took him fully.

 _Oh._ He’d never forget the first time they did this, that uncertain but thrilling moment when John trailed down Paul’s body, his thumb bruising Paul’s hipbone, to say shyly, _D’ye want me to --?_ And Paul, eighteen and always, _always_ horny, nodding quick enough to make John laugh, startled, as they slipped into it, finding each other with a familiarity that still made Paul nervous.

John was heavy in his mouth, the sensation at once lewd and empowering. Pressing his finger into the heat behind John’s balls, Paul started up a rhythm, thinking of some confused beat of a Buddy Holly song or something from when they were teenagers, finding himself humming just enough to make John groan long and brokenly, one hand coming to twist in Paul’s hair. Paul closed his eyes and surrendered. A string of curses and exhalations mingled with the scent of sweat, the wet sound of Paul’s ministrations. After a while John’s voice had lowered tellingly – _Ah, Paul, fuck –_ and Paul slipped two fingers to press at that ring of muscle that made John exclaim, his grip in Paul’s hair inching over the line from pain into pleasure. Paul moaned, low and dirty, and looked up with dark eyes at John, who was pink cheeked and panting. As they gazed at each other, Paul deliberately smoothed his fingers over John’s arsehole again, the friction making John go, “Oh, fuck, I want to fuck you.”

Pulling back, Paul got unsteadily to his feet and immediately pulled John into a filthy kiss. John bit his way into Paul’s mouth, his hands running greedily over every inch of Paul’s body. His skin was damp and flushed and warm beneath Paul’s fingers, which were slick with spit and precome. Keeping a possessive hand on Paul’s waist, John tore his legs free from his pyjama bottoms and shrugged off the dressing gown, which pooled at his bare feet. He sucked Paul’s tongue and pulled away, keeping their noses pressed together, as he started unbuttoning Paul’s dress shirt.

“Dressed up for me, eh?” John teased hoarsely, shoving it over Paul’s shoulders. He bit at Paul’s jugular and ran a tongue along his collarbones, making Paul feel lightheaded with anticipation. Heat pooled low in his belly and gathered at the small of his back, his erection pressing insistently against his jeans. John rubbed a thumb over Paul’s nipple and Paul’s breath hitched, swallowing clumsily as he watched John lower his head and open his mouth against his chest. Convoluted desires clamoured to the forefront of Paul’s mind. He felt himself go slack against the wet burn of John’s mouth on his nipples, his breastbone, his stomach, which jumped as John’s teeth grazed sensitive skin.

Paul gripped John’s hair and brought him back into a kiss, their teeth glancing off each other. He peeled himself away from the doorframe and started to walk backwards towards the bed, his eyes heavy on John’s, his shirt dangling from his elbows. Deftly he unbuckled his belt and popped the top button, watching John as he dragged the zip down. John followed Paul’s gaze to his crotch, where his erection was hard and visible in the jut of his narrow hips.

“Take them off,” John ordered, his voice tangled and rough and _oh no,_ Paul thought desperately, biting at his bottom lip and wanting, wanting to – “Get on the bed.”

It took all his willpower to remain calm, although his mouth was slack and the cool air touched his damp nipples in a way that made his cock jump. Paul tilted his head back and started pushing his jeans down his legs. When he was free, he fumbled only briefly with his shoes – John laughed, slightly wild, and Paul grinned up at him – before dropping to sit on the edge of the bed. His cock loomed, hot and urgent, and he leaned back on his elbows, legs spread.

John’s expression made Paul’s heartbeat falter. He approached with stoned grace, the sweet touch of weed clinging to his long limbs, sweat darkening the thatch of hair at his groin. John came to stand over Paul then lowered himself to his knees, taking hold of Paul’s underwear and peeling them down and off, freeing his cock. Paul made an aborted sound when John ran his mouth along his length, his eyelashes brown and soft against his cheek. When John pushed Paul’s legs apart even further, Paul’s elbows gave way. He gripped the sheets and bent his knees, exposing himself to John’s heavy eyes. The first touch of a tongue on his balls made him moan, his muscles slackening, and John’s brogue, when he spoke between Paul’s legs, was dark and rolling, “You’ll fuckin’ end me, Paul,” the weight of his words making Paul’s skin tighten, his eyes fluttering closed, biting his tongue. His thoughts roared dully in his ears as John flattened his tongue to his arsehole, as he kept running rough hands over Paul’s burning thigh muscles, as he inched a fingertip in past tight muscle to make Paul’s voice stutter and shake as he went, _Oh John, fuck, there, please._

“’Ang on, love, ‘ang on,” John said indistinctly, then his hands and tongue were gone and Paul lay on the bed, wound up as a spring, staring at the ceiling and breathing heavily through his nose. When John’s mouth returned to his inner thighs, pressing slack kisses towards his cock, Paul growled, “So help me, I’ll do it meself –“

A slick finger traced Paul’s arshole as John said roughly, “Don’t make me think abou’ – _Christ_ , Paulie.” Paul opened his mouth to retort but bit down on a loud exclamation when John started to suck his inner thigh. John was fucking his fingers in slowly, the coldness of the lube making Paul sweat when he considered what they were working up to; what he’d been wanking off to since he was old enough to comprehend it, to name that feeling when John crooked two fingers inside and he tipped his head back and moaned, long and low, heat gathering at the base of his spine, his cock fattening against his stomach –

“Fuck me.” Paul caught his breath and leaned up to meet John’s gaze as he tore his eyes away from his fingers, which slowed to a teasing rhythm. His mouth pulling away from Paul’s thigh, revealing a wide reddish mark.

John exhaled. “Oh, Paul,” he said unsteadily, pulling his fingers free. He crawled onto the bed and up Paul’s body to settle between Paul’s open legs. They kissed hungrily, Paul grabbing at John’s freckled back, one leg coming up to wrap around John’s slim waist, pushing their erections together. Breath caught as John started to rut, their cocks dragging in the most maddening, wonderful way, enough to make Paul loop both legs around John and cant upwards, sweat and lubricant slipping between them, weed making his skin sharp and sensitive, his pulse hammering as John licked his mouth, his neck, curled his head into the crook of his shoulder, one hand coming down to guide himself to Paul’s arsehole.

When John nudged at Paul’s entrance he hissed, and Paul’s throat constricted at the rush that pressure elicited. “Come on, Johnny,” he muttered, half-goading, half-begging, fighting the primal urge to push down onto John’s cock. “Come into me, that’s a lad, come on –“

“Oh, fuck, Paul.” John’s breath was hot against his skin. He thrust shallowly, working his way in, his cock pushing into Paul’s body, making Paul moan, his head falling back, one heel digging into John’s spine, needing desperately for more, _more –_ “God, Paul, fuck.” John started kissing Paul’s neck, his thrusts accelerating. They panted together, skin sticking, pressed so close that Paul’s cock rubbed against John’s belly as he moved. That ache, that _stretch,_ made Paul feel utterly helpless, exposed in that way he craved; the sensation of John’s cock thrusting into him, the sweet shove and drag, was unlike any adrenaline or drug high, better than LSD, than whiskey, akin only to standing on stage as thousands screamed their names, turning his head to catching John’s exhilarated expression, both of them thinking, _This is it, and you are here, and I am yours,_ and, “Fuck, John, fuck me, that’s it, _come on.”_

The heat twisted, whipped into a frenzy of motion, the sound of rutting and choked gasps like the most furtive thing in the world, _You’re all I really need, Paul, you and a fuckin’ guitar…_ Paul squeezed his eyes closed and focused on the pinprick of pleasure that blossomed and rushed through and over him as he came with a strangled shout, his cock throbbing between them, white pleasure rippling outwards, along his boneless limbs and sore muscles, until he found John’s mouth and kissed him sloppily, needing to bring him to the edge… Paul tightened his arse and John cried out, his thrusts hard and erratic. He moved for a few more beats before coming to a stop, capable only of breathlessly kissing Paul, a pleasant ache suffusing their bodies.

With a content sound John roused himself to pull out, leaving Paul feeling stretched and open. He closed his eyes and lay in the warmth, groaning a little when John came to curl beside him, huffing a laugh into his neck.

Paul wrinkled his nose. “Clean me off, would ya.”

“Bossy,” John replied sleepily, but after a moment he swept a bit of sheet over Paul’s stomach, cleaning off come and sweat. Littering Paul’s side with lazy kisses, John stretched out and lay on top of Paul’s outstretched arm, looping a leg over one of Paul’s.

In the silence that followed Paul focused on what filtered through his consciousness: John’s sweat in the air, the residual whisper of weed, the slightly acrid smell of come; John’s thumb as it traced circles around one of Paul’s nipples; the feeling of John’s breath on his neck. Paul turned his head to breathe in John’s hair, which was unwashed and smoky and achingly familiar. His heart swelled. Shifting down, Paul pressed a slack kiss to John’s mouth, who smiled.

“Already?” John sounded burred and fucked-out. Paul’s blood stirred.

Paul grinned. He kissed John one more time and pulled away, shifting his arm to pillow his head. After a while John moved back and looked up at him. At this proximity John’s eyes were watchful, his softness swimming close enough to the surface that, had they not been post-coital, would have warranted a sarcastic comment about those _fuckin’_ _feelings_. As it was, John continued to drink in Paul’s expression, which was equally unguarded. They undid each other, that was the problem.

 _You unravel me,_ Paul thought.

He shifted and blinked, focusing more intently. “John…”

“Are there words?” John’s thumb stopped on Paul’s chest, his hand coming to rest over his nipple. There was a shadow of a challenge in his tone.

“Not for once,” Paul said quietly. He reached up to touch the side of John’s aquiline nose, to trace one finger down along a round cheekbone to the curve of his jaw. John’s eyes fluttered and he tipped his head slightly to the side, letting Paul spread his fingers over his jugular. His pulse was slow, content.

“Christ.” John blinked in sudden anxiety. “Paul.” His voice was wondrous and terrified, and Paul watched him in mounting uncertainty. John opened his mouth, thought better of it, and swallowed. His hand moved up to press against Paul’s heart. “Paul,” he repeated.

A burning urge to confess rose like bile in Paul’s throat. He bit it down and shifted closer, moving his hand to curl around John’s neck. They lay together for a long time, the cool air settling around their bodies, John’s skin warm and sticking to his own. After a while John began to trace the divots of Paul’s chest, tripping over his ribcage, fingers tapping out a steady rhythm. Paul felt it with his eyes closed, his mind filling in John’s beat with nonsense words. He found himself humming under his breath when John kissed him quietly.

When they surfaced, Paul smiled at him. “And that was for…?” he teased.

“M’composin’,” John mumbled. He resumed tapping his fingers, one thumb shifting as if on his guitar.

“Anything good?” Paul must have sounded businesslike, because John opened one eye and squinted at him. His expression was jovial, as if he were about to retort, before it shifted slowly into something more serious as they watched each other. Opening both eyes, John studied Paul’s face. The softness in his gaze deepened. Paul’s breath snagged in his throat.

“ _I guess nobody ever really done me,”_ John sang lowly. He paused, licking his lips. His eyes skittered down to Paul’s mouth and away again. In one movement, he rose into a sitting position, looping his wiry arms around his knees. His fingers tapped on his calves.

“ _But you do me,”_ Paul improvised, watching John’s profile. “ _Yeah, you do me.”_

“Yeah,” John repeated, half to himself, then he turned to look straight at Paul. “You do.”

Confused desire rose within him. Paul propped himself up on his elbows, careless of his nudity, and looked at John intently. His eyes were big and dark, eyelashes like cuts of coal brushing the end of his overlong fringe. “Come with me,” he said, sounding sad although this was anything but, his words heavier than he wanted, because if John didn’t agree... “To High Park. Please.” Paul swallowed. After a beat, he added, “I need you there.”

John leaned his head on his crossed arms. “Need?” he asked. “Or want?”

“Can it be both without you wanting me head on a spit?”

A grin flicked across John’s mouth. He untangled himself and suddenly pinned Paul to the bed, pushing them back against the sheets, his knees bracketing Paul’s hips. John leaned down until their noses were just touching.

“I’d want that anyway,” he replied blithely. “I collect art, or didn’t ye know.”

“Calling me art, are you?” Paul lay his head back and assessed John with half-mast eyes.

John stared at him. “No.” He leaned down and kissed him, swiftly working his way into Paul’s mouth, sliding their tongues together and nipping his bottom lip until it swelled, still bruised from earlier. John devolved into kissing shortly, closed-mouth and quick, then tilted his head and dragged Paul back in until Paul moaned, warmth rising to the surface in the most traitorous way. John pulled back languorously, both arms up by Paul’s head, looking down at him in that intense, dark-eyed way that made Paul shudder.

“Yes,” John amended, sounding strained. “Sometimes.”

“Prick tease,” Paul accused lowly.

“That too,” John told him. “You’re known for it.”

“Oh, really?” Pushing up, Paul managed to surprise John into falling onto his side, clambering over him until he was settled across John’s thighs. John struggled vainly until Paul grabbed his wrists and pinned them above his head, exposing the way his cock was swelling against his hip. Paul assessed John with a raised eyebrow and a sharp, lopsided grin. “Well,” he began conversationally, moving one hand down John’s front to hover at his waist. “Not much I can do about that.”

“Screw you, McCartney,” John growled, his hips jerking up as Paul pressed a thumb to the divot of his hip. “You’re only livin’ up to your reputation.”

Paul took John in hand. He relished the heat in his palm, the heady way in which John’s breath caught, his head tipping back. Leaning down to kiss up John’s throat and chin, he hesitated just above John’s red, wet mouth. “You do me too, Lennon,” he murmured, then kissed him.

**Author's Note:**

> yes, they're composing "don't let me down", for no other reason besides the fact it's my favourite beatles song and i am the personification of paul mccartney screaming at the end of it. i just think of these two when i hear it. also, "i'm in love for the first time"....... like.. please john
> 
> & please comment, kudos, let me know what you thought!


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